Tremble
by TCGeek
Summary: With higher stakes than ever before, Derek's surgical skills are tested in a way he never thought possible.


**I just noticed - this is my 40th story... can you believe that?! (is excited)**

**So yeah. This is another request for someone over on DevArt - a story about epic!surgery. Seems simple enough, no?**

**I'm working on what I hope will turn out as an awesome story - I've got a pretty sweet idea, and I wanted to finish this so that I could give that my undivided attention.**

**More things are coming from me, in time, of course :) You can always keep up-to-date my checking out my deviantart page... same username and everything!**

**Alright - here goes a fun ride. Hope you guys like it!**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

Derek Stiles had always loved the city of Angeles Bay.

For his entire life, the city had been so close. Just an arm's reach away, just a short drive, just an extended jog put him back in the heart of the place he found comfort – the place that never slept and was always busy, just like him. Nobody besides him had ever understood why when he wanted to wind down he went to the city instead of someplace more quiet, but for Derek, the hustle and bustle was more calming than even the most tranquil of places. Whenever he would look out over the city he loved from his tall apartment or the roof of Caduceus, he would instantly be reminded that the people down there needed him – that he had already saved countless amounts of them, and that every day was a new day, a new fight… a fight that he was winning, slowly but surely.

Angeles Bay was the first place he had committed himself to being a doctor, the place he had attended school, lived on his own for the first time, and started his first job as a surgeon – the job that had led to him meeting his assistant, who turned out to be the woman of his dreams and just last year, his girlfriend. The city was the home of the greatest job he could've ever hoped for, was where he learned of his extraordinary talent, and was where he made all the friends he knew would be near him for his lifetime, sharing in the same hopes and dreams he held for himself and his future.

But to everything there is an exception, and Derek knew that as much as he loved the city, it held some of the most painful experiences he ever remembered. Some of them nearly broke his spirit and will to fight, some of them had willed him to beat insurmountable odds, and some had forced him to learn painful lessons about who he was and just what he had gotten himself into by becoming a doctor.

And this, was one of those days.

"No matter how many times I see this, it'll still make me sick…"

Angie's comment struck a chord with him as he stared despondently out the window of the ambulance he was riding in as it pulled ever closer to its destination. She saw the worried look on his face as he failed to respond to her, grabbing his hand and lacing her fingers with his to comfort him. A faint smirk came to her lips when she felt his hand grip onto hers firmly, but it quickly faded as she stared at him – she could tell by knowing him that he was lost in thought, and also, very worried. And rightly so – as he was the person expected to deal with the biggest act of bioterrorism ever to befall his beloved city.

Every time Derek stepped out onto the streets of Angeles Bay he felt the breeze sweep through his hair, his ears tickled by the sounds of passing cars, buses and people, and the sight of the city he loved so much ready to make him start another day. But today, the city he remembered was nearly a foreign place to him. Putting a stop to the normalcy of every day were screeching tires, sirens, and the sickening screams of the injured. Replacing the wind in his hair was the nausea that chilled over him as he saw people collapsed on the streets and the sidewalks, countless car accidents, and those who were not injured trying desperately to find help. The only thing that remained was that sense of determination he felt every time he stepped out on the street, now increased ten-fold. It didn't matter what happened, or how much he had to work… he was going to give it everything he had, just like every other time.

"Alright, you know how it goes…" Sidney spoke, with the team huddled around him. "Everyone break off and into your respective areas and remember to prioritize your cases – let's get going."

Derek and Angie immediately ran to the heart of Angeles Bay, or as it was commonly called, the Citywalk. This wasn't the first time that GUILT had spread through the general public, and it was shown in the calm nature that both the doctor and nurse showed, though the urgency was still very evident. Their legs carried them around a corner and down a street where they stopped at an intersection, taking a moment to compose themselves.

Bodies were littered everywhere. Some fine, some hunched over, some unconscious, but all affected by the disease in one way or another – whether it was directly, or as a result of a loved one. In addition to the GUILT victims there were victims of accidents in the street – whether it be by car, bus, or bicycle, the calamity had absolutely uprooted everyone and everything – and it was up to Derek, Angie, and the rest of the teams to put it all back together.

"Alright Derek…" Angie spoke, glancing downward at her map. She only really called him 'Doctor' in front of other people, reserving it for times that required the strict professionalism that she hated putting up when it regarded the one she loved. "…you know the drill, let's find those with the most advanced stages and treat them immediately, working backwards from there."

"Right…" he replied, eyes glazing over the sick as he and Angie walked.

"I think this man right here looks in pretty bad shape… what do you think?" she asked, kneeling down next to a man who was all alone and unconscious. She received no response and turned to look at Derek, whose eyes were somewhere else.

"Derek?!" she called, snapping his attention to her. "Pay attention – would you like to start here, or no?" she asked quietly to keep her voice down around the other patrons.

"Uh, sure…" he said, grabbing for his hazard mask. "Let's get st--…"

And suddenly he stopped, spotting a middle-aged woman hunched over across the street, her hand holding onto a wall next to her to hold herself up. He locked eyes with her briefly, and as soon as he did she passed out, crumpling to the sidewalk with a thump he could've sworn he heard even amidst the chaos.

"Angie, over there… that woman just passed out!" Derek called, readying himself to run to her, when he was grabbed firmly by the crook of his elbow and whirled around to face Angie.

"Derek, wait! She JUST lost consciousness! There are other people in worse shape than her – we have to go assess them before we just jump into this!"

"Dammit, Angie…!" Derek snapped, seeing her visibly recoil at his uncharacteristically harsh tone. "We've done this enough to know that every second counts – so we're going to start, and we're going to start now or else people are going to _die_…"

And before she could say anything he sprinted off to the woman he had seen, leaving Angie with no choice but to follow him with confusion.

"Pulse is strong now, but is growing weak…" he grumbled under his breath. "Angie, let's get ready to operate…"

"Derek…" she said in almost disbelief. "You can't be serious – you _know_ she's not in the worst shape here… just look around and…"

"Well, we have to start somewhere…" he interrupted.

"But, if you start here, there's a good chance that those worse off will die! And she's not in the worst shape, just look around and you'll see that! I don't understand why you're doing this!"

"Angie!" he bit back, whipping his head around her to give her a stare that she had never seen from him before – one that made her a little scared. "We're going to start with her, because I'm the doctor here and that's my decision. Are we clear?!" he yelled as he lifted the woman into his arms and the two of them walked towards the waiting make-shift operating room, laying her down gently on the table.

Angie just glared up at him, her eyes showing hurt and anger as they locked stares for a brief moment, before Derek set to work, realizing that no more time could afford to be wasted in that moment.

"Yes, Doctor…" she said with a vindictive tone, activating the chiral reader. The tension between them was thick as the results were processed, before Angie began speaking.

"The patient is infected with Tetarti, Doctor." she said, again reserving the title of 'doctor' to show him her displeasure with him at the moment. "Let's open her up and see what's going on."

"Right." he replied, clumsily reaching over the now anesthetized woman and grabbing for the scalpel just as Angie turned around to read the monitors. Derek looked down to see the blade pressed against the woman's skin with a tremble in his hand – one that he hadn't gotten in a long time.

"_It's fine – you can do this..."_

There was no reason to be nervous, for he had done this a million times before.

…_so why was this time completely different?_

"Derek…!"

The brunette shot his gaze up quickly to see a slightly irritated Angie holding his hand still before he could make his incision, her other hand wiggling a small bottle of antibiotic gel back and forth in front of his face with her eyebrows raised.

"Derek, what's with you?!" she asked, quickly smearing the gel on the patient's skin to help him out. "First of all, you never grab for the instruments without asking me, and don't think I can't see your tremors… just slow down and let me help you – take a deep breath."

"I wish there was time to relax, but I've wasted enough as it is." he simply replied, making his incision with a still trembling hand.

Angie looked on at him bewildered. "Alright, well, I don't know what's gotten into you but you need to get it together quickly or else you know how this is going to turn out. This strain is going to be mutated, so you need to have your wits about you, Derek…"

"I GOT it, alright?!" he yelled, immediately feeling guilt pang at him as Angie jumped backwards and her lips pursed into a thin line, avoiding his gaze as she nodded slowly.

"Angie, I'm…" he offered, reaching forward to grab the syringe she was holding out for him.

"Just… don't, right now, Derek." she cut him off, tone of voice completely flat. "Treat the toxic diverticula while we wait for Tetarti to surface."

Realizing that it wasn't the time to be fighting with her, Derek simply shook his head to get back into focus and injected the syringe full of blue liquid into the corresponding diverticula.

"Scalpel." he asked, feeling it be placed into his outstretched hand. He cut swiftly around the toxic mass and left it there as he grabbed the syringe full of green serum to remove the next.

Had they not have been operating she would've been ready to read him the riot act, but Angie's anger subsided when she again noticed the tremble in Derek's hands… a tremble she had only seen during their first days operating together. Green eyes abandoned their hurt and took on more of a concerned stare, watching his every move as the operation he once performed flawlessly had taken on the look and feel of an apprentice – he was mumbling to himself, clumsily switching the tools in between uses, and his once rock-steady hands were shaking. For some reason, he was rattled. Very rattled…

Angie went to open her mouth to speak but stopped herself, choosing instead to wait and see how the situation played out. She watched as he finished cutting out the last of the diverticula, and reached to grab them out of the patient with his hands before her shriek stopped him.

"Derek…!" Angie exclaimed, lunging over the table to grab the tray and the forceps. "Those are poisonous… you can't just grab them!"

He paused. "Oh… uh, sorry… forceps, please…" he muttered, bringing his eyes up to meet hers once and them dropping them back down toward the patient, the slightest bit of shame in them. He knew that he was losing it and it ate away at him by every passing second – he was a doctor, not a resident, and nothing upset him more than to look so… helpless.

Especially in front of her.

Angie placed the forceps into his hand but didn't let go, forcing him to look up at her.

"Derek you need to relax. You need to get it together, because you're not thinking right now… take a deep breath, and let me help you." she said sternly, enunciating the last four words very clearly. Green and brown eyes stared at each other until the first was sure that the latter understood, but when he gave a gentle nod and the hard look in his eyes softened, she knew that he not only agreed with her, but that she was right – something was definitely going on. She let go of the forceps and readied the tray, never taking her eyes off of him.

"I… need your help, Angie. I'm just nervous..." he admitted, grabbing at each of the toxic masses and plunking them into the cold, metal pan she held towards him.

"Don't worry Derek – just like always, I'm right by your side…" she said with a smile, his eyes meeting hers once again as he exhaled deeply and watched her ready the four syringes. Green, blue, purple, and yellow liquids all smoothly slid into their corresponding plastic contraption and sat ready for Tetarti's first attack, whenever it decided to make itself known.

And not a second later, Angie turned around to look at the monitor, her eyes widening.

"Chiral reaction is rising, doctor – here it comes!" she exclaimed, both of them turning their eyes downward just as a blue, green, and purple Tetarti came swimming to the surface of the woman's liver.

"Green…!" he called, feeling the syringe be slapped into his hand. He held the plastic tube between his index and middle fingers, pushing the plunger down firmly with his thumb as the green Tetarti began to shake wildly.

Repeating the process for both blue and purple, Derek heaved a sigh of relief as they all stalled, spun around once and then dove back under the surface, giving him and Angie a very small window to regain their composure before the next attack.

"Yellow…!"

"Doctor, after this round she could use a little stabilizer…" Angie warned gently, looking at vitals which were still in the clear, but hanging just under 50. Turning his head up to glance at the monitors himself, Derek returned his gaze back down to the patient just to realize that he had absolutely no idea which one was which.

"Shit…!" he hissed, hovering over the three of them with the needle as he tried to distinguish them by any sort of method he could possibly think of. Usually it would be by the gas they expelled, but the open door of the back of the ambulance made that impossible with the wind blowing inside.

"Derek…?" Angie questioned. "What's wrong?"

_I'm not going to panic – if she sees me panic, she's going to keep questioning me. Just pick one, and hope for the best._

"Nothing, Angie…" he replied, jabbing the needle into the Tetarti that happened to be closest to him. Immediately he closed his eyes when he saw a blue and a yellow diverticula form, all three organisms disappearing from his view again.

"Derek, what are you…?"

"Just, hand me the syringe, please?!" he exclaimed, setting to work quickly. She just watched him and handed him the appropriate tools as he quickly sped through removing the toxic lumps, as another round of Tetarti appeared and the woman's vitals began spiraling in a slow decline.

Something was off, and Angie had noticed it not only in her usually unbreakable boyfriend, but also in the way that this particular strain was acting. Every time the three individual bodies made their way to the surface to attack, the patient's vitals took a bigger hit each round – something that usually remained quite constant. Her eyes shifting back and forth between the monitors and her doctor's still trembling hands, Angie tried her best to continually inject stabilizer while assisting Derek and worrying about him at the same time, especially as he became more and more clumsy.

"Vitals are dropping, Derek… I can't keep them up. Something is seriously wrong here…!" Angie exclaimed, a bit of nervousness in her own voice. She injected another syringe-full of stabilizer and watched with disbelief as vitals only climbed by three.

"I don't know what's happening…!" Derek said, the tremble in his hands growing by the second. He dropped his tools when the Tetarti disappeared and planted his hands firmly on the table in front of him to rid them of their tremors, something that allowed him to not only calm down but think at the same time – Angie was right, something was going very wrong.

"We need to talk this through…" Derek said, wiping the sweat off of his forehead with the back of his arm. "Their attacks keep getting stronger, and the stabilizer is barely working… could it be toxicosis?"

Angie grabbed the vial with the toxicosis serum and injected it into the liver, following it up with another syringe full of stabilizer.

"No change…" she replied, more of an edge to her voice as she turned around to see vitals hanging around 30 and barely staying there, at that.

"Okay, not only do we have to worry about why the attacks are so bad, now I'm really starting to wonder what the hell is going on, because they're not coming back…" Derek said, looking down. With his hands still firmly planted on the table to ease his nervousness, he brought his face a bit closer to the opening, noticing small ripples just underneath the surface of the organ – the Tetarti were definitely still there, so why weren't they attacking?

"How's the chiral reaction, Angie…?" he asked, never taking his eyes off his patient.

"Steady. Unchanging at the moment – but vitals are still dropping… and if we keep going like this, we're going to run out of stabilizer."

Derek bit his lip hard, surveying the area.

"Derek, you need to make a call, and you need to make one fast… she's not going to hold out much longer if this keeps up… Not to mention that, we have a lot of people out there that need us—"

"What, are you just suggesting we give up on her!?" Derek yelled, startling Angie once more. "Absolutely not – we're going to save her, Angie…! Just like we're going to save everyone else here… we can't give up!"

"Will you LISTEN?!" she shot back, tired of his attitude. "I'm telling you that we can't just sit here and wait for it to attack again…! Something is different here and we both know it, so we need to figure it out fast because we don't have any more time to waste!"

And suddenly she was cut off as the chiral reaction spiked and the Tetarti came nearly flying to the surface this time, as both she and Derek recoiled in horror.

Right in the middle of a blue and green Tetarti was one they had never seen before, forcing them both to become nearly sick to their stomachs.

"Black…?!" Angie shrieked, frozen in terror as her and Derek exchanged a stunned glance with one another, quickly lowering their heads back down to examine.

It was indeed black as could be – a brand new color of the strain, and the most likely cause of the unexplained behavior in the patient's condition. Derek felt instantly sick as he looked at the black mass, knowing that this could not turn out good.

"Get Victor out here… NOW!" he barked, scrambling for the stabilizer as Angie grabbed for the radio.

"We have an emergency…!" Angie all but screamed into the walkie-talkie. "Dr. Niguel, there's a new color of Tetarti – we need you out here immediately!"

There was a short pause before Victor's voice came booming over the radio. "I'll be there as soon as I can…! Just, deal with it until then!"

"We're losing the patient as it is, Victor…!" Derek yelled, Angie holding out the radio for him to speak. "What should we do…!?"

"You should tr—"

Both Angie and Derek paused and looked at the radio as Victor cut off, the nurse examining it with a perturbed expression.

"It's dead, Derek…" she said nervously, clicking the buttons a few more times before she threw it behind her and went back to helping.

"What the hell are we supposed to do?! Doesn't ANYTHING work today?!" Derek shouted, still injecting stabilizer as he tried to think.

"Well, yelling isn't gonna do anything to fix it!" Angie yelled back, taking the stabilizer syringe from him as she alternated that and antibiotic gel. "Just THINK, Derek… how can we deal with this?"

"I-I don't know!" he snapped, his eyes looking up at the patient's face as he planted his hands on the table again to rid them of the tremble, which in seconds had doubled in intensity, spreading through his body and into his legs, which he felt might give out on him at any minute.

"Um…" Angie pondered. "Well, can we make a serum here?"

"What are you talking ab—…shit! Cardiac arrest! Paddles, NOW!"

Angie flinched but quickly handed Derek the paddles – she was in no way used to him speaking to her that way, and it showed by her expression… he was still way off from his usual self, and it was getting worse by the moment.

"Charging to 200 – Clear!" he screamed, prompting Angie to recoil again at his unnecessarily loud shout. Nonetheless she pulled her hands and the tools away from the patient and backed up, allowing Derek to administer a shock that immediately brought the rhythm back.

"Okay, what do we do…?" Derek asked. "Victor is undoubtedly stuck in traffic… we need to figure out something…!" he said, him and Angie administering stabilizer at the same time until she pulled away and grabbed an empty vial from behind her.

"Let's think back to kindergarten…" she simply suggested, pulling the rest of the vials out quickly as Derek just watched her.

"What are you doing?" Derek asked, hands shaking so badly that he was barely able to draw the stabilizer into the syringe.

"All the Tetarti serums are made from each other… so with that, if we just play simple color mixing and mix them all together to make black, maybe it'll have enough of an effect to at least buy us some time…"

Derek did nothing besides watch as Angie injected the same amount of each color serum into a vial, seeing it turn a murky black when she had finished. She quickly capped it off and shook it, pulling it into a syringe and handing it to him.

"I'm waiting for another attack…" he told her, eyes downward, sweat dotting his brow. "I hope this works – we're not going to lose her…! I won't let her die!"

He clumsily yanked the syringe out of Angie's hand as she just looked on at him bewildered by his actions, the gentle tremble in his hands now nearly convulsions.

The Tetarti came up for another round and Derek injected the other two colors, saving the black for last. He bit his lip hard as he fought the shake in his hands and pushed the needle into the body, injecting a full dose into it.

He and Angie watched cautiously as the other two spun and dove underneath the surface, perplexed when the black one stayed put, convulsing all the while.

"What is it doing?" Angie asked quietly, her and Derek bringing their faces in closer.

"I have no idea… vitals are stable and so is the chiral reaction, so something has to be going right… right?"

The pair grew nervous as the black Tetarti started to shake harder and faster, until eventually it seemed to rip from the inside out, exploding a mass of black all over the patient's organ as vitals instantly plummeted.

"SHIT!" Derek screamed, lunging for the stabilizer clumsily, much to Angie's chagrin.

"Derek, CALM DOWN!" she yelled at him, holding out the bottle full of green liquid for him to use. "Let me just clean up the mess and…"

He stopped at her words as she nearly screamed in surprise, noting that the black substance sprayed everywhere had been covering up a huge diverticula straight in the middle of the organ, it's boundaries throbbing – ready to burst at any second.

"She can't withstand the blast from the diverticula – we have to do something…!" Angie yelled, her and Derek both working with syringes in their hands to try to raise the defiant vitals.

"We can't inject it with that concoction, that's for sure…!" Derek yelled, just as Victor all but jumped into the back of the ambulance with them, his eyes widening immediately.

"What the hell happened…?!" he shouted over the screaming machines, immediately setting to work with the serums.

"We had no idea what to do! It was a black Tetarti and the only thing we could think of was to mix the serums, and…"

"You've gotta do something!" Derek pleaded, his tone of voice shaky as he yelled at the researcher. "This diverticula is gonna blow and we have no way to stop it – if it bursts, she's going to die! DO SOMETHING!"

"Whatever you mixed was too strong, if the thing just exploded like that…!" Victor explained loudly, grabbing what little was left of the serums and beginning to mix them. He pulled a vial of white power out of his pocket and stirred some of it into the mix, tweaking the mixture with just a tiny bit of the toxicosis serum as well. With that it turned to a deep black, more fitting looking.

"Try that!" Victor all but yelled, thrusting a filled syringe into Derek's hand. He injected it straight into the mass and sighed with relief as it paralyzed the growth of the diverticula, allowing him to cut it away without a problem.

"Well, it's a good thing that black one already exploded …" Angie said, continually injecting stabilizer still as her other hand held out the tray for Derek to drop the giant mass into. Everyone shared a sigh of relief.

"Thank you, Victor…" Derek said, his voice uncharacteristically shaky. "Thank you so mu—"

"DOCTOR!" Angie shrieked, noticing that another black Tetarti had come to the surface of the organ.

"What the hell!?" Victor asked. "Inject it with the serum!"

Derek injected the last of the black serum into the Tetarti, his eyes widening sharply.

"No effect! It's not strong enough!" he exclaimed, noting the Tetarti's slight twitch – the discernable sign that whatever had been injected hadn't been sufficient.

"Hang on, I can mix another one, just let me…" Victor started, interrupted immediately by Angie.

"Another diverticula has formed!" Angie shrieked, keeping a watchful eye on the monitors as vitals hung in the high 20's.

"Come on Victor, we need that serum NOW!" Derek yelled, determination and fear evident in his eyes.

"Will you stop rushing me, I'm going as fast as I can!" Victor snapped back.

He finished pouring the last part of the mixture into the vial just as the unthinkable happened – the diverticula burst, vitals plunged, and the patient went into immediate cardiac arrest.

"NO!" Derek screamed, lunging for the paddles again and taking out several things on his way, a show of his complete lack of control.

"Charge to 200, get out of the way!" he yelled, delivering a shock that did not so much as cause a blip in the ventricular rhythm.

"Dammit – Charge to 300…!" Derek yelled again, visibly losing his cool. "CLEAR!"

Both Angie and Victor backed away again as he shocked the patient – nothing again.

"No… this isn't happening!" he growled, turning the dial once more. "360… CLEAR!"

Nothing.

"I WON'T LET YOU DIE…!" Derek shouted, administering another shock. Angie and Victor both exchanged a glance as they saw the surgeon tearing up, though he didn't seem to care – he pushed his shaking body forward further as he administered shock after shock, throwing the paddles angrily to the side as he started manual chest compressions.

"COME BACK, DAMMIT…! Come back…! P-Please, just… come back… come BACK!"

"Derek…!" Angie exclaimed, placing her hands on top of his and halting his movements.

"Come back…!" he continued repeating, voice cracking as he started to cry more generously. "I can save you, just come back… p-please don't do this… COME BACK!"

"DEREK!" Victor suddenly yelled, yanking Derek's hands away from the patient. He was promptly slapped, much to the surprise of both the researcher and the nurse standing at Derek's side, as the surgeon angrily returned to deliver one last shock.

"Come on… charging to 360 again…!" he cried, unable to stem the flow of tears. "C-Clear…!"

Once again, nothing. No change.

"No…" Derek whispered, unable to stop himself from crying. Angie and a still-stunned Victor just looked at each other and at him as he started to really lose it, stepping to the back of the ambulance and sinking down onto the floor, rocking back and forth.

"T-This isn't happening… I WON'T LET THIS HAPPEN!" he screamed, curling his fist into a ball as he smacked the ambulance door, sending it flying open and into the side of the vehicle with a loud bang. He cried more generously now, and fought Angie as she stepped to his side and removed his surgical garments, eventually just giving in and letting her.

"What the hell is going on with him?!" Victor whispered to Angie, seeing her shake her head as Derek all but collapsed into her lap, holding around her tightly.

"Will you call it, please, Victor?" she asked him quietly.

"Time of Death: 15:51…" he said quietly.

"I'm s-such a FAILURE! I'm NOTHING!" Derek shouted, his anguished cries drawing attention though neither Angie or him cared much at the moment. She tried as best as she could to comfort him, wondering what had gotten him so upset.

"Derek, there was nothing we could do…" she whispered gently.

"NO!" he yelled back, cutting her off. "I'm a God-damned FAILURE of a d-doctor…! I can't do this, I just c-can't…"

In the meantime, Victor had paged Dr. Hoffman, who showed up with Sidney at that exact moment. Derek ran out of the back of the ambulance, staggering down the street haphazardly as Angie went after him, eventually pulling him into her lap in the middle of the road as he collapsed again.

"I have no idea what's going on…" Victor said. "He just… went insane when the patient died. Like I've never seen him before… he seriously just snapped."

Dr. Hoffman and Sidney exchanged a confused glance and then hopped into the back of the ambulance, prepared to deal with the situation.

"Alright… well, we don't have any time to waste right now, especially if Derek is unfit to operate…" Sidney said, handing a black purse to Victor. "Call her death in while Dr. Hoffman and I get prepped for the next operation.

"Will do, Chief…" Victor replied, sifting through the woman's purse in search of her identification. He heard Derek's sickening wails behind him, forcing himself to continue on with his task when really, he was absurdly rattled by the situation.

"Alright, I'm going to get the next patient…" Dr. Hoffman said to Sidney, when they both turned to see Victor with his eyes wide open, a sickly pale tone sweeping his face as he took a step back and a hand came to rest over his mouth.

"Oh, fuck…" he whispered, shaking his head.

"What is it, Dr. Niguel?" Sidney asked, eyeing the researcher quizzically. He made eye contact with the chief briefly and then tossed the ID onto the table, where both Sidney and Dr. Hoffman dropped their heads instantly, all three men unsure of what they were supposed to possibly do in that moment.

It had only taken a second make all three of them sick, realizing just then why the anguished cries coming from their ace surgeon were warranted.

One moment, one glance at the top line of the ID…

…belonging to a one Mrs. Elizabeth Stiles.

* * *

**So, for those who are new to my world, Elizabeth is the name I had for Derek's mother. Get it now? :)**

**(is evil)**

**Alrighty, going to BED now... talk to you later!**


End file.
